The downhill side

Not sure how much student work I have to look at today -- need to look in my briefcase and see. Not much, at most a few late things. So I can get a lot of editing for the review done in the next couple days if I choose to.

Gray and threatening rain. The latest spring tease of a few days has come and gone.

Far enough into LOVE IN THE WESTERN WORLD to remember what a fine, challenging book it is. Really glad I'm rereading it. At the same time, in recent brooding I'm thinking of a complete overhaul of the novel's protagonist, making him blue collar. Definite advantages to this in the discussion context of his situation. I'm thinking of making him an ex-grad student, now janitor at a university. Book learned but not academic. I'll brood on this some more.

On Sunday morning Jeff Greenfield had a piece comparing humans with their text-messaging cell phone blackberry gadgets to Swift's etereal high brow intellectuals who haVe lost all touch with the ground underneath them. I'm not sure I agree, which is to say, this may be going too far. There is, after all, a kind of communication going on in much of this, even if the tools are different. Most technical advances birth schools which predict an end of civilization from using them. (And other schools that predict the democritization of everything. What usually happens is advances increase someone's profit.) At any rate, this one for me is still too close to call.

One thing I should do this week is reschedule the two video projects I started, shooting in late June and July.

Need to make a trip to Idaho this summer to see Esther, Brad and Kass, Dick's mother and two sons. Question will be whether to do this early or late in the summer.

Later is the reunion, the grad English students from the 60s, an event I plan to tape and from which to make two different documentaries, one historic and one personal. Still have mixed feelings about all this. One, I'm not convinced the gathering or the place were unique. The 60s were just the 60s, happening everywhere. I don't think anything special was going on in Eugene. Not "historically." Personally, of course, it was a hugely important decade in my life.

How this event goes for me no doubt depends on whether or not "Sally" shows up and, if so, what her attitude is. In the historic context, our house was a major hosting spot for many, many gatherings of this group. It would be awkward indeed if she comes and brings her same grudge to the affair. I suspect she won't come. For one thing, on list of people she was listed as "Deemer," which she hasn't been for 30 years and clearly won't appreciate. This also means no one knows she's a lesbian and though she's not hidden this for decades she may not want to deal with it, especially with me there.

Well, "it's all material" no matter what happens. I just don't want to be part of a scene. I'm comfortable with this historic truth: she was a huge positive influence on my life, and some of my happiest moments were shared with her. If she prefers a revisionist history, that's her game, not mine. I witnessed the life-long grudge she held against her father. Maybe it's my turn. (Her sister, at least, understands where I'm coming from.)